


Controlled

by evilwriter37



Series: Banned Together Bingo 2020 [3]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Alcohol, Forced Sterilization, Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Racism, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, modern-ish AU, the 70s, torture mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:33:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25383880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evilwriter37/pseuds/evilwriter37
Summary: Eret goes missing and Hiccup and Astrid are horrified to hear his story when he returns home.
Relationships: Eret/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Series: Banned Together Bingo 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743505
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Controlled

**Author's Note:**

> This touches on a very sensitive topic of the forced sterilizations that the Saami people underwent in Sweden. In no way is this shown in a good light. As the fic takes place in Sweden in the 1970s, I’m using Hiccup’s Swedish name: Hicke.
> 
> Prompt: Interracial Relationships

Hicke hadn’t seen Eret all day. Not since that morning. That worried him greatly. Usually he was home from work by now. The sun was just beginning to set behind the high rise buildings, casting everything in a dirty, orange glow. 

“Hicke, what are you doing standing outside?” Astrid asked. She had just come home from the market, and Hicke was standing outside their cement building, smoking a cigarette to calm his nerves. “It’s cold.” Usually when it was this cold out, Hicke would smoke a cigarette on the building’s stairwell, but now, he was waiting for Eret. 

“Haven’t seen Eret since this morning,” Hicke told her, brows furrowed. “Usually he’s home by now.”

Astrid shrugged. “Maybe he had to work late. Help me carry in the groceries.” She hefted a bag into Hicke’s hands, and after stomping out his cigarette, they went inside and carried the groceries up the three flights of stairs to their apartment. Really, the apartment was rented under two names: Hicke and Astrid’s. The landlord never came by, and if he did it was usually when Eret was at work. He didn’t know that their Saami roommate and bedfellow existed, which was a good thing. Disastrous things would happen if people were to find out the nature of their relationship. As far as everyone in the building was concerned, Eret was their good friend who didn’t have enough money to get a place for himself. They didn’t know how long they could keep up that lie though, not with Eret’s consistent job. 

Hicke hoped that Astrid was right. They set the groceries down in the kitchen. The walls were painted a dull orange and the rug was a dark brown. It could sometimes be dangerous wandering around Stockholm as someone of Eret’s heritage, even for someone as well-muscled as he was. Luckily, people took one look at him and decided to leave him alone, but what if this night was different? What if that was why he wasn’t back yet? 

Astrid took a bottle of beer from the fridge, uncapped it with a bottle opener, and began to drink. She tried passing one to Hicke, but he waved it away.

“Were you able to buy any meat?” Hicke asked, looking through the paper grocery bags. 

“A little,” Astrid said. Meat was expensive at the moment. They could only afford to eat it once a week. “I was thinking of saving it for Friday.”

“We always save it for Friday.” Hicke began taking food out of the grocery bags and putting it on the counter, where Astrid would then transfer it to its rightful place. He knew where everything went: it was just easier to unload the groceries while someone else put them away. 

Astrid shrugged, put something away, then snatched up her beer again. Hicke didn’t blame her for drinking. He drank too most nights, but not now. He was too worried.

“I’m going out and looking for him,” Hicke declared once they’d finished putting the last of the groceries away. 

“Where will you even look?” Astrid asked. 

“I’ll start at his office, see if he’s there.” Hicke hadn’t taken off his coat yet, had known he was going to be going back out. He headed for the door.

“Just be careful,” Astrid told him.

“You know it’s Eret that has to be careful.” Hicke left, and went alone down the stairs and out of the building. 

  
  


“What do you mean ‘ _they took him’?_ ” Hicke asked. He was talking to Eret’s boss and a coworker.

“These men came in and escorted him out of the office,” the boss said. Hicke despised this man. He knew because of him that Eret wasn’t making as much money as he could be, that he’d cut his pay because he was Saami. 

“Did they leave anything at his desk? Say anything about where they were taking him?” Hicke’s heart was in his throat. What had happened to Eret?!

“I don’t think so, but you’re free to go look.”

That had Hicke taking off running through the office until he got to Eret’s cubicle. He skidded inside, looking around frantically for any clue, any sign of where he could be. There was nothing, save for Eret’s half-finished coffee, now cold and bitter, and his keys. Panicking, Hicke picked up Eret’s phone and dialed a familiar number. 

“Eret? Hicke’s been so worried about you. He-”

“Eret’s not here,” Hicke told Astrid, tone grave and serious.

“What? What do you mean he’s not there?”

Hicke clutched the phone with two hands. They were shaking. “He’s not _here_ , Astrid. His boss said that some men escorted him out, and his coffee’s still here, so it must have been sometime in the morning.”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He heard Astrid kick the wall. He hoped it wouldn’t leave a mark. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll keep looking for him. I found his keys. Stay put just in case he comes back.”

Hicke put down the phone after saying a rushed goodbye to Astrid. Then he was left standing in Eret’s cubicle, keys in his hand, unsure of what to do now. Heart racing, he rushed out of the office building and out into the dimming light of the evening. 

  
  


Eret was hurting. Not as badly as he’d expected, but that didn’t mean it didn’t suck. Walking was a pain, and he found himself limping. Though, he counted himself lucky that he _could_ still walk after the day he’d had. He didn’t know what to tell Hicke and Astrid. How was he supposed to recount his day to them? 

He’d lost his keys somewhere along the way, but luckily, the main door was almost never locked. He found it unlocked this time. The trek up the stairs was difficult, and he grunted with nearly every step. Hopefully either Hicke, Astrid, or both, were home. 

He knocked on the door and waited with bated breath.

It opened tentatively, and then in a rush when whoever it was saw that it was him.

Astrid enveloped him in a big hug. “Eret! God, we were so worried! Hicke called from your office and told me you got escorted out by some people. What _happened?_ ”

“Can we talk inside?” Eret asked. He wasn’t showing Astrid any of his usual affection. How could he after what had happened that day?

“Of course, of course.” Astrid moved aside and let Eret in, closing and locking the door behind him. “Hicke has yours keys, by the way.”

 _Thank god._ Eret had been afraid they were somewhere on the streets of Stockholm, where anyone could pick them up. 

“Is Hicke coming home?” Eret went and instantly sat down on the couch. He felt better while not standing. At least a little bit. He felt like his world was caving in around him, like the things he was allowed to do had turned into nothing but a little black speck. 

“I hope so. Soon,” Astrid came and stood in front of Eret with her arms crossed. “Now tell me what the hell happened.”

  
  


Hicke walked home, despondent and tired. Darkness had fallen, and he hadn’t found any sign or trace of Eret. His footsteps were heavy as he ascended the stairs to his apartment. He unlocked the door, words already on his tongue.

“Astrid, I didn’t find him.” 

Except there Eret was, sitting on the couch, tear-stricken. Astrid sat with him, holding his head against her chest.

“My god!” Hicke closed the door and rushed in. “Eret! Eret, what happened?! Those men that took you - what did they want?! Are you hurt?!” 

Eret straightened, wiped at his face. He didn’t seem to care that he was crying in front of his lovers. 

“Those men that took me, Hicke… they knew about us.” His voice was low. 

“About all of us?” Hicke asked, frightened. That was something the three of them were always worried about.

“Just me and you,” Eret said. “They… they wanted to institutionalize me.”

Hicke put a hand over his mouth, stifling another “my god.” If they wanted to institutionalize him for homosexuality, how was he still here with them? How was Hicke safe? 

“How’d you get away?”

“They said there was one way for me to get out of it,” Eret said. He swallowed, wiped more tears from his eyes. “They wanted to sterilize me.”

“But… but me and you… we can’t…” Hicke was at a loss. He and Eret couldn’t have children, and Astrid was being careful so that she didn’t get pregnant with either one of their children. 

“Didn’t matter to them.” Eret shook his head. “They didn’t want a chance of me passing my genes along. I’ve heard of it happening before, but I didn’t know they did it to men too. I…”

“Eret, please don’t tell me that-”

“They sterilized me.” Eret put his head in one hand. There was a sound like a choked sob that came from him. “I’m sterilized. I can’t…”

Hicke collapsed onto the couch on Eret’s other side, put his arms around him. He couldn’t imagine what Eret was feeling right now, what that could have been like. His heart was breaking for him. 

“Eret, god, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Hicke felt tears in his eyes. He didn’t know what to say. Eret didn’t lean into him, didn’t react to the signs of comfort and affection. He just sat stiffly and stared straight ahead. 

“I’ll… I’ll go make dinner,” Astrid said. She stood, sniffled, wiped some tears from her face, and went into the kitchen. Hicke just stayed holding Eret, and there he stayed until dinner was ready.

  
  


Eret lay in bed between Hicke and Astrid. There was a separate bed that sometimes one of them slept in, but his partners didn’t want him to be alone. He didn’t know how to thank them for that. He’d hardly said a word since recounting what had happened. He’d showered on his own, and that had hurt, and he’d tried looking at the incisions that had been made. That had left him sick and reeling, so he decided he wouldn’t do it again. 

They’d forced it on him. They’d given him no other choice. Well, his choice had been being institutionalized, and he’d heard enough horror stories about that to know he couldn’t go there. There would have been shock therapy, hydrotherapy, daily tortures that he couldn’t have gone through. And they wouldn’t have let him out until he’d been “cured” of homosexuality. But there was nothing to cure. He wasn’t sick and he knew that. There was nothing sick about his relationship with Hicke, nothing at all. His relationship with Hicke and Astrid was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. He couldn’t have let them torture that out of him, turn his good memories into ones of pain. So he’d taken the only way out. 

Sterilization. 

They’d put him to sleep for it. All in all, it had been a twenty minute long procedure, and they’d let him out after, to walk home all on his own. He hadn’t known where he was at first, but after a few blocks he had been able to get his bearings. 

Eret didn’t know if he’d wanted to have children with Astrid. Maybe. Maybe he and Hicke could have raised their children together, and Astrid would have been the mother. But now all that was taken from him. No children. No… future. 

Eret wanted to cry all over again but didn’t have the tears left. He’d cried them all out. He was exhausted. He’d taken some Tylenol and Ibuprofen, and that had helped the pain he was in, but that did nothing to dull the pain inside. It was like razors sliding around inside his heart. Worst of all was the injustice of it. He wasn’t the only Saami this had been done to, and he probably wouldn’t be the last. He had to do something… but there was nothing he could do. He was stuck in an oppressive society that wanted him and his people wiped out and gone. And they’d taken that one step closer to doing that by sterilizing him. It was wild and unfair. _So_ unfair. In those moments, Eret hadn’t had control of his life. The government had, and now he had a permanent reminder that they always had control of his life no matter what he thought. 

Eret found tears again, and he pressed his face into Hicke’s hair and quietly cried. He woke no one.

**Author's Note:**

> I may have a part 2 of this.


End file.
